Today was the first day of school (for kids – we teachers have been back since Friday). It was a very pleasant day. The classes were fun and I have high hopes for my new course, Advanced Problems in Science. It’s good to get off to a good start for the year. 🙂 Tonight, as per family tradition, the folks and I will head off to Frisch’s Big Boy for supper. Yay!
Month: August 2008
GBP!
NBC is full of it…
Does NBC think we’re stupid or something? The gymnastics event (uneven bars) with Nastia Liukin took place already in Beijing. However, while watching MSNBC’s 5-7pm show on the Olympics, everyone was talking about the event as if it hadn’t happened yet. (And yes, the MSNBC show was live.) What was really ridiculous was when they interviewed a lady over what she thought Nastia’s chances were. Fer cryin’ out loud! I had already looked on the website and knew the outcome (and won’t tell y’all in case any of you are waiting to see what “happens.”) I found the whole exercise insulting, actually.
(Despite this and some other irritations I’ve had over NBC’s coverage, I’m loving the online content that they’ve provided. I’ve seen more table tennis & archery this year than I’ve ever gotten to see and that makes me very happy.)
Bathroom Remuddle – Nearly Done!
My bathroom is nearly complete. I basically just need to paint the baseboard (and possibly the door – mom’s trying to talk me into that) and the ceiling. But for now, I’ve got everything else completed. I’m really liking my bathroom!
Teaser photo:
Head over to my gallery to see photos of the job. For those of you who looked last time I posted the URL, you can skip ahead to this point to see the new photos.
Big Butter Jesus
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| Big Butter Jesus
The Solid Rock Church along I-75 has a statue out front which has earned the nickname “big butter Jesus.” I managed to snap a photo of it while we were heading north on I-75. |
Segway Day!
Although we all got up early today to wish elsaf farewell for her journey home and walk her to the train station, judiang and I returned in order to sleep some more. Heh. (Judi did get her “regular” at Starbucks, but we still opted to sleep in.)
Turns out we arrived before they were open, so we walked over to Michigan Ave and returned to the Apple store. We watched a neat workshop on Aperture, a photo editing program that looks really useful. But it’s $200 (and is it Mac specific?) so I shan’t be getting it.
We returned to Indian Garden and had a wonderful lunch buffet. Lots of tasty tasty. Once we’d gotten food in our systems (and spicy food at that) Judi was energized and warm enough to walk back to Millennium Park. We saw several women walking for a 3-day breast cancer walk going on in the city. We wished them luck on their walking and commended them for their efforts.
We were early to the bike center, so we sat and rested for awhile. Then we took a potty break over by the outdoor concert hall. A choir was practicing, so we watched that for awhile before returning for our segway tour.
Judi and I found helmets and signed our lives away before we were given our segways to ride. There were 18 of us on the tour with two really friendly (and knowledgeable) tour guides, Jeremy and Dave. We walked our segways down a hill (the one that I rode up at the end of our bike ride yesterday) and took them over to the “ice rink” (not one in the summer, just in the winter). There, Jeremy taught us how to get on ’em, get off ’em, go forward and back and stop and turn, etc. We had a nice opportunity to learn the ins & outs of segway steering.
One of the first things Judi and I learned about segways is that they’re not as easy as they look. If you stay relaxed, it’s easy peasy. But I kept clenching my knees and toes while riding which made it harder on my feet. I loved going up hills on the thing – much nicer than a bike! Still, I like bikes better for most of the rest of the riding. 🙂 As Judi said, when you’re on a bike, you can easily put your feet on the ground, but with the segway, when you stop, you’re still standing & adjusting to keep the thing stationary.
We toured around the lakefront, mostly at museum campus. I saw stuff Judi’s never taken me to. Heh. When I was able to hear Jeremy’s tourguiding, I’d learn stuff about the city I hadn’t known. He took us to what used to be Meig’s Field (now a prairie of wild flowers). I took photos and a video, which I’ll paste at the end of this post.
We were pretty tired by the time we returned to the bike center. So we sat and rested some before we headed off to the bus stop nearby. We took the #4 bus back to 13th street, then walked home.
Our original plan (well, Judi’s original plan) was to put her new grill together then go to Jewel and buy stuff to grill to christen the grill. But as it got later & later and I got hungrier and hungrier, it looked less & less likely that Judi would be putting the grill together. She finally decided we should go out for supper. I suggested Grace O’Malley’s, so we walked there.
We both ordered the Guiness cheese soup as a starter and amaretto sours. I ordered the beer battered fish & chips with the salad & bleu cheese dressing. Judi ordered the chef’s Caesar salad with steak. Then we ordered dessert – I picked the pecan brownie ala mode and Judi got their Bailey’s cheesecake. Very yummy supper!
We’re now watching the Olympics (wow on that 4×100 swim relay!) and geeking. Tomorrow Judi promises to put the grill together, so I guess we’ll grill hot dogs for lunch. And then I’ll head off to home again, to see my poor little neglected kitties.
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| Segways R Us
The last two in this row are the ones that Judi and I was using. 🙂 |
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| Judi glides on
Judi gliding around on her segway at the planetarium. |
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| Judi and me!
Yes, even I rode a segway today! Jeremy, our guide, took the photo. |
Jersey Boys are Boss!
As we had, indeed, planned, we wound up going to Ma & I for supper. We all ordered sushi as an appetizer (me getting California roll – yum!). judiang and I both ordered tofu pad thai and elsaf ordered shrimp lad nar. Very yummy. Then we cabbed it to Bank of America Theater to watch Jersey Boys.
I’ve heard music by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons but didn’t always know it was them. But I recognized more than half of the songs in the musical and enjoyed it all. A very fun musical with lots of good music. I did miss some of the dialog in the show (but heard more than Judi, who figures she understood 3% of the dialog). While watching it, I kept wanting to get on Wikipedia to read more about Frankie Valli et al. (Joe Pesci? Really! Wow!) I am SUCH a geek. But I feel a little vindicated cuz Judi admitted the same. 🙂
After the show, we took a cab back to where we’re picked one up before the show. Cuz we had some ice cream to be eating! Good ol’ Marble Slab is open late, so we got ice cream for the walk back to Judi’s apartment. I had chocolate swiss and pistachio. Yum!
Now I’m watching Olympics and we’re all geeking. I have a couple of photos from our bike trip today, which I shall post under the LJ cut.
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| Elsa & Judi biking
We paused along Lake Michigan to turn around and head back. We’re on rental bikes. |
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| Lake Michigan
A shot of the Lake from our bike trip. Perfect day for biking. |
Riding by the Lake
Today has been Exercise Day here in Chicago. Earlier, we rode bikes along Lake Michigan and just a bit ago we went swimming in the pool. And we’ve only had brunch for food today – it’s almost like a health spa or something! Anyhoo, I’ll get into more detail (or you can read elsaf‘s journal entry instead) about my trip thus far.
After brunch, we headed over to Trek Bikes on Michigan Ave (not far from Judi’s apartment) so that Judi could purchase a Trek bike. They didn’t have Navigator 3.0’s in stock (the bike Judi rode when we biked last weekend), so she tried the other comfort bike that they stocked. Even with a couple of different adjustments and also sampling the unisex bike, Judi decided that she really just ought to special order the Navigator 3.0. I bought her a bell in celebration (which she’ll have put on when the bike arrives later this week). On our way back to the flat, we stopped for ice cream at Marble Slab. I got a double chocolate malt – tasty tasty!
Back at the apartment, we snoozed. Actually, Elsa and Judi snoozed while I played World of Warcraft. I wasn’t going to actually play, just check on auctions, but with Judi sleeping, I thought “well, I’ll just go do this…” and then “she’s still asleep, I suppose I could start this…” and then I finally had to pull myself away.
Once we were all awake and not gaming, we headed off to Navy Pier to Bubba Gump’s for supper. The goal was to get the dippin’ shrimp – only they don’t have that right now. Bummer. So I got the Shrimper’s Heaven meal, which had coconut shrimp, breaded shrimp, peel & eat shrimp, and shrimp tempura as well as french fries and slaw. Tasty tasty! I also ordered the chocolate chip cookie sundae for dessert. Yum! Elsa and Judi enjoyed their meals as well. (I think Elsa goes into more detail.)
We returned to the place around the middle of the Parade of Nations for the Olympic opening. Alas, we missed the really cool stuff, but we did get to watch the parade (which I always love to see) and the lighting of the torch (very cool – but Barcelona will always win with the archer). While we were watching the recorded opening ceremony, I was also watching a live badminton match between Ireland and Germany on my laptop. I’m really excited by all of the coverage that NBC is going to do for this Olympics.
This morning, Judi was up at a reasonable hour – surprise surprise!
When we returned, they still hadn’t delivered her grill. So we vegged and geeked while we waited for the grill delivery. And when they did deliver, Judi and I headed downstairs to meet the delivery dude, only to have him tell us they’d already sent it up to the apartment. Returning to the apartment, no grill. But the phone rang and it turns out they were on their way up. They dropped it off in her kitchen and then we were FREE!
We headed off to Millennium Park to rent bikes for a bike ride around the Lake. We decided on a 2 hour rental, which made them $20 a piece before taxes. Nice. We got Trek Navigator 2.0’s for the ride and rode towards Navy Pier (and then past it). It was a very pleasant ride. Although it had been cloudy and threatening rain, when it was time to rent the bikes, the sun came out and it was very sunny and pleasant. I don’t think we could have asked for nicer weather for our bike ride.
After we’d been out for about half an hour, it was nearing the halfway point of our rental period. So we turned around and headed back, not knowing how long it would be to return (there was more uphill, we thought). Turns out, it took less time to return to the park than we figured. But we opted on finishing anyway – especially since we’d all attempted going up one of the steep hills by biking. (I did it, but it wasn’t easy! Even Judi made it 3/4ths of the way up – you go gurl!)
There was one more steep hill to try, which I also successfully did – but once again, it was hard the last 3 feet or so. Go me! Right after we turned in our bikes, Judi and I booked a place in tomorrow’s 2pm Segway tour of Chicago’s lakeside. That should be fun! And shortly after, it started to rain. It sure was nice that the weather cooperated for our bike ride. Now we just wanted it to cooperate for our planned swimming venture.
We geeked for a short while before putting on our swim suits, and when we got to the pool, it was lovely outside again. There was sun and there were clouds, but it was warm enough to be in the pool. We stayed in for about an hour (long enough for us all to get wrinkly fingers). Now we’re all here updating our blogs. (I’m the last to finish.) The plan is to get supper at Ma & I, the Thai place near Judi’s place. Then we go off to see Jersey Boys at the Bank of America Theater (what Judi says was once called the Schubert Theater). Should be a fun evening!
Millennium Park
I’m back in the Windy City – a mere month from my last visit here. Indeed, this is the first time since I was a kid (I think) that I’ve been here in the summer and it’s not around Taste of Chicago. No matter, there’s lots to do (and eat) even though that festival isn’t going on.
Today’s flight was uneventful – yay.
We headed back to her place where Lance greeted me, looking very chipper (a contrast from last weekend, apparently. Glad he’s doing better!) Judi and I then sort of vegged for a bit, eventually each taking a nap. This refreshed us quite nicely for our Grand Adventure yet to come.
Our only real plan for the day was to have tapas for supper at Exposure (which is also on Wabash). But then I asked about going to the Apple store, so that’s where we headed off. We took the #3 bus up Michigan Ave and as we paused by Millennium Park, Judi asked me if I’d been there before. I hadn’t, so we hopped off the bus and visited the park.
The Grant Park Orchestra was rehearsing for tomorrow night’s performance, so we listened for awhile. It was a lovely day and I took lots of photos. We walked through the flower garden and across the BP Bridge. But eventually we continued walking up Michigan Ave towards the Apple Store.
Along the way, we encountered Eno. This is a wine/cheese/chocolate place. They serve flites of wine, of cheese, and of chocolate. We’re not big on wine, but we love cheese and we love chocolate. So Judi ordered a Riesling for herself and we got the International cheese flite and the bittersweet chocolate flite. We both enjoyed the 4 year old Gouda and the cheddar. The Spanish cheese was a little tasteless in my opinion. I liked all of the chocolates, but Judi really disliked the third chocolate, so I ate the extra piece of it.
We also popped into an art store on the walk and talked to a nice young man from the Cleveland area who enjoys Cedar Point. And eventually we made it to the Apple store. That’s a neat little place. And there was a lady teaching a workshop on the second floor. Judi and I both managed avoid buying anything, so yay us!
We just missed the #3 back, so we waited at the bus stop for the next one. Bus after bus came by, but none of then the #3. Judi eventually got pissed off enough that she hailed a cab to take us to the tapas place.
This was her first time to Exposure, even though it’s just two blocks from her apartment. She needs me and Elsa to visit in order to explore her neighborhood. 🙂 We picked out four tapas to try (they go for a variety of cuisines rather than sticking to Mexican): steamed mussels, crispy Asian calamari, goat cheese gnocchi with pulled pork and caramelized onions, crab stuffed jumbo shrimp with Israeli cous cous and a shallot cream sauce. Then the waiter told us they also had fondue on the menu. So we ordered that as well. He wanted to know what type of cheese, but we said “surprise us.” He picked Gruyere, which was an excellent choice. We enjoyed the tapas (though it turns out I don’t like steamed mussels and Judi managed to eat a hot pepper while eating the calamari which nearly wiped her out).
Although we’d stuffed ourselves silly at Exposure (though they take forever to serve you each tapas, so it takes a couple of hours to eat it all) we decided to get some ice cream at Marble Slab for dessert. I chose peppermint ice cream and double chocolate ice cream. Yum!
I took photos with my camera while we were in the Park and have posted them for your edification.
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| Millennium Park amphitheater
Symphony in the park – what a lovely idea. The weird structure over the lawn area supports lots of speakers to allow everyone to hear the orchestra. |
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| Millennium Park amphitheater – alternate view
Turn away from the amphitheater and this is what you see. |
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| Grant Park Orchestra rehearses
The Grant Park Orchestra rehearses for Friday and Saturday’s concerts in the Millennium Park’s amphitheater. |
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| Seats
Judi and I enjoyed this view from where we were sitting and enjoying the practice of the orchestra. |
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| Millennium Park flower garden
There’s a nice assortment of flowers at the park. I loved the juxtaposition of flowers and cityscape. |
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| Millennium Park sculpture
There’s this neat reflective kidney bean at the park. Can you see me reflected in the surface? |
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| Millennium Park sculpture 2
Here I am! |
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| King Lear
A King Lear statue by J. Steward Johnson, 2008. |
Still paused & refreshed…
Poor judiang is stuck in a plane on the tarmac in Dayton waiting for a big ass storm over Chicago to subside. She’s been on the plane now for over 2 hours and is eating bags of pretzels to keep up her strength. Poor thing! I’m on call, ready to zip off to the airport and pick her up if the flight is canceled.
The contractor’s end of things on my bathroom is done – yay! I’ve just been in cleaning things up. Tomorrow I am going to take a BATH in my new tub! Woohoo! Mom wants to take a photo – provided I have lots of bubbles. Um, yeah-no, as my friend Carolyn would say. Heh. I’ll get photos up later once I get the in progress ones that dad took while I was hanging with Judi and elsaf at the Lake.
So, last time I reported on our Lake adventures, I said I’d talk about Saturday.
We left my car in the parking lot and Elsa drove us to Pleasant Hill (my town) in order to see if Meddlin’s Peddlin’ Bike Shop had a better bike rack than the one she was using. (Her highway drive down with two bikes was rather disconcerting since the rack started listing to one side. She stopped several times on the way down readjusting them.) Jack Thomas is the owner of the bike shop – he’s a retired biology teacher and former mayor of P Hill. He was his usual helpful self and first tried to see if he could get her current rack more stable. He’d not seen one like it and really wasn’t able to help it out. But he had a 3-bike rack in stock that turned out to be VERY stable for the bikes. And since it holds 3 bikes, in future Elsa could take her two bikes and mine to wherever we’re going to be riding. Yay!
We stopped at my house then so Elsa could see the bathroom in progress. Rych and his son were still working on things (they finished yesterday around 3:30, dad says). It was looking GREAT! I checked on the kitties who, as usual, were hiding under the bed. I apologized for not being there, but they didn’t seem to care. Heh.
When we returned north, we went to the Haus der Eleganz for lunch. I had the chicken salad sandwich (on croissant) and onion rings. The sammich was lovely, but the onion rings were a little soggy – like they’d been microwaved or something. Oh, and I had a vanilla Italian ice. Yummy! The girls seemed to enjoy their lunches as well.
Before we returned to the cottage, we went to Wagners for some groceries for Elsa’s evening masterpiece. Elsa pulled up to the cottage and Judi said “I’ll go put the ice cream in the freezer while you two get Trina’s car.” Elsa and I just looked at each other like “Oh yeah! The car!” Neither one of us had remembered it was still at the park’s parking lot. *snerk*
Judi cleaned the kitchen while we were getting my car, so shortly after our second return, Elsa started on her evening meal. Mmmm. If you’ve never had one of Elsa’s meals, you’re missing out. (Hmmm, I think only my sister and hergrace have experienced this in my flist.) I had, as usual, invited mom & dad around to enjoy it as well.
I spent some time reading (and occasionally dropping off) while Elsa slaved away in the kitchen. Judi eventually suggested going to Wagner’s again so she could get AAA batteries for her mouse and Elsa suggested some green onions for her bourbon creamed corn. So we did that. Mom & dad arrived around 6 – about when I was starting the fire for grilling the meat and peaches.
So what had Elsa prepared for us? Bourbon creamed corn, as I mentioned. Twice baked potatoes (the best we’d ever had, agreed my folks). Grilled peaches. Peach brazed donkey dongs. (OK, so that’s not what they were, but they sure looked like donkey dongs!!! I should know, I laid ’em onto the grill to cook ’em! And I wish I’d taken a photo so you could see that I’m telling the truth.) They were peach brazed pork tenderloin and were very tasty! I’ve become quite the grill master with Elsa as my guide.
For dessert, Elsa had also baked us blueberry pie. Oh my, was it simply brilliant. We all enjoyed the supper and we love that Elsa loves to cook. 🙂
After the folks left, we tied Judi down and made her watch The Mikado. The only version I have on video is the Jonathan Miller one, which I enjoy (cuz I love Eric Idle) but which isn’t a very traditional version. What Judi really needs to see is a very lavish live version. It turns out there were two songs she recognized: “Titwillow” and “Three Little Maids from School.”
Sunday was a lazy day. Once again, Elsa made us breakfast – pancakes and sausage. But then she had to drive back home. *sniff* Judi and I pretty much spent the rest of the day sleeping and/or reading. I finished one book and made quite a bit of progress in another. The weather was perfect – I spent most of my time reading in the chaise lounge outside. The only time I had to get in my car was to take us to Wagners (heh) so we could get marinated chicken boobies to go with our leftovers for supper. (We’d grilled hot dogs and had leftover creamed corn for lunch). I picked out the rosemary garlic chicken and Judi picked out a Bordeaux marinated chicken. I grilled those and we heated up leftovers. Oh, but before supper we’d had the last of the blueberry pie with ice cream.
I had an 8am meeting this morning, so I decided I’d go home Sunday night. I made Judi a mudslide and me a sodie (cream soda float) out of the last of the ice cream. Then I drove home around 10:30pm. Judi and I played a little WoW together and then I slipped off to bed.
I woke up at 7:30am this morning, got ready, and rode my bike to the school for the meeting. It was our design team meeting for the new school building. We’re working on color schemes, type of wood, carpet colors, locker colors, etc. And the plans for the school look really cool. Neat to see the layout of my classroom/lab in context with the rest of the building. The meeting ran long, so I left before we finished in order to get back to my guest.
I returned to the Lake around 11am and proceeded to fix a late breakfast of – you guessed it – pancakes and sausage. I used the last of the Aunt Jemima mix and the start of the Hungry Jack mix (which we picked up last night with our chicken boobies). So we had Hungry Jemima (or Aunt Jack) pancakes. And loads of sausage since Judi told me to grill it all.
Then we slept. I actually did a bit of laptop work first (reading dad’s labs from his Advanced Problems in Science class which I’m restarting this year), but wound up on the sofa sleeping. But when I got up, it was time to start shutting the cottage up. Judi cleaned the dishes, I vacuumed and gathered up trash and laundry. We got on the road a bit later than I’d intended (too late to get ice cream before hand). We stopped at my house so Judi could see the bathroom now. (And also to dump off the trash.) Then I dropped her sorry little butt off at the airport. Where she’s still, I’m imagining, waiting on the tarmac in the plane. I hope they get on their way ASAP!